


Sick Building

by NUKANotUserKnownAs, test1234test4321 (NUKANotUserKnownAs)



Category: The Stanley Parable
Genre: Other, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-12-16 18:17:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21040625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NUKANotUserKnownAs/pseuds/NUKANotUserKnownAs, https://archiveofourown.org/users/NUKANotUserKnownAs/pseuds/test1234test4321
Summary: There's something wrong with the office.





	1. Concourse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably not an improvement on the last fic.

"Stanley! _STANLEY!_"

He's screaming, desperate at first and then like he's in _pain_. Then it's a noise, and N. has never made a noise like that, Stan didn't think he _could_ make a noise like that, could barely imagine _anyone_ making a noise like that. Stanley has dropped his papers and spilled his coffee. It's burning his legs but he's still listening to it. The noise cuts off after what seems like minutes. His papers are fucked; the coffee's all over them, the ink's another color in the puddle. Stan doesn't know what to do, whether to open the door or not. This is a lie. He knows full well he's not opening that door, not for for love or money.

The coffee gets cold and his scalded thighs start to hurt and he's still in there. Eventually, he manages to talk himself down, convinces himself that N.- that N. is probably "only" badly hurt, that he's wasting time he could be using to go and find the Narrator, to get help. This bothers him for a second but it passes before he realizes why. Then he's reaching for the handle, sweat on the back of his hand, not just the palm- a little hesitation, just a flinch, but that _sound_, holy shit- and he's got his hand on the door, and this is the point at which he realizes that something terrible is going to happen to him if he goes out looking for N. but if he stays in his office he'll get dehydrated and then go looking for water, which will really screw him over. He's already in the _sales funnel_ for a truly bad time, a prospect with his checkbook out, you would be justified in saying. He turns the handle.

First off, the smell. Earthy, musky- creepy and unpleasant. The cubicles, the little camp of weary underachievers outside his office- wrong. He looks them over, tries to figure out what's off. Finally, he sees that they're reversed (he wants to think 'transformed', but that's bad, so instead he uses 'mirrored', which is even worse: the word has a quavering, theramin-like quality that strums his nerves). Number 436 is behind, the other one's in front. A bit further in, he finds the smell's source. Old, old coffee, several hundred "SMILE" mugs dashed to bits on the floor one after the other over what looks like months from the fan of stained, pungent carpet spilling out from the desk. The rug has finally started to give. Even synthetic fibers can rot- there's a spray of dark, fuzzy filth in the core of the stain. He heads forward, toward the hall.

The hall is bad. The emergency lights are on. Ahead, vague pools of light iterate like video feedback. Too far way, there's a wall. Two minutes later, it turns out to be staggered, so that another too-long hallway extends from its side. The door behind him has not closed. He does this a couple of times, each stagger taking him further to the side (but it's not 'to the side', it's 'inward', he thinks), the joint leaving the last hallway hidden except for a grimy wedge that looks like something's about to saunter into it any time. The door's still open back there. Five hundred of the same mug. He's about to head into the next branch when he sees the stain.


	2. Concourse II

It's the one from the cubicles. It's cut neatly in half where the next hallway begins. It's not cut in half, but it's huge, so large that it easily makes it from the left wall to the right. It's darker. He is not conscious of blinking. There is no stain. He stares at the empty yellow carpet where there was never a stain. The air is heavy, so heavy that it's like pins and needles on his skin.

He's staring at the trick carpet, not moving, when he figures out what's wrong with "finding N. and getting help". And why not call for help, why not use the phone instead of sitting in his office for ten minutes, scared senseless? Why not get someone else to- why not someone else- _I have_, he thinks, _no idea what __N. looks like_. _I have no idea what he looks like because I've never seen him. I've never seen him because_

There is a lack in his thoughts, an empty wall where words won't stick. It comes to him that he's suffered a stroke, that these years in this building have exposed him to toner fumes or plasterboard dust or some other poison that's fucked his brain, that this is why the office is suddenly mutable, except it's done that before, because- _Aphasia_, he recalls. There are words for this, unlike the that he can't describe or name. But this is an aphasia that grows, so that when he attempts to test its boundary, it swallows whole the cordon. So the Narrator and then and and and

The stain is there, black even under the light, slightly smaller. It's the end of the hallway that's always been different: it's a door with an exit sign, a liminal glow that floods the end of the hallway and ends the grimy intervals of green emergency light in florist's lurid pink. The dread was bad but the hot prickling fog now stifles his every breath. It wasn't the stain changing. _If I had a watch, it would be stopped_, Stanley realizes.

He can't cross it. The dread's too strong. He can barely look at the exit. _It gets worse there,_ he thinks. He couldn't say how it gets worse, what this means. And of course he can't go back; the other door's open, behind several hundred yards of blind corners. He sits down on the floor, between the hot pink glare and the long hall with its lurking nothing.

Eventually, he tries the office door behind him. It opens. It's small and stale, and there's hardly any room, but he sees another door, blocked by the desk. He gets the stuff off it, the phone, the boxes. He puts the chair back at the door. The drawers are empty but he takes them anyway and stacks them on the chair. Even with this, the thing is still too large to move- _too large to get in here_, he guesses, a giant awkward L. Stanley brings it forward just enough to open the door, steps out- and realizes he's in trouble. He's in the parking lot, except it's lit in exit pink, and it's got walls. Walls with dark windows, walls all around. A ceiling. Desks and chairs on asphalt. The air is still, like in a basement.


End file.
